This session contains PDF documentation whcih was received from the Heidelberg University Archive. It relates to the cassette and reel recordings found in this archive.
Description : The Akha are one of the numerous hill tribes of Southeast Asia. They came from the border area of Burma and Yunnan to Southeast Asia, they currently settle in northern Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. The language Akha belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and knows only the oral tradition without written evidence.
The Akha collection consists of audio recordings taken from cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes, as well as word lists, narratives and a multitude of photos of the work on the Akha language from the estate of Friedhelm Scholz. The latter are accessible in the Heidelberg University Archives https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/uniarchiv/.
Description : Friedhelm Scholz studied Anthropology and Prehistory in Cologne (1955-1962). In 1957 and 58 he studied Vietnamese and Bahasa Indonesia at the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris. He also was a member of the French Foreign Legion. He received his PhD on Der Herr des Bodens in Ostindonesien in 1962 (Cologne). From 1962-64 Scholz worked as assistant at the Museum für Völkerkunde and Swiss Museum for Volkskunde (Basel). From Nov 1964 to March 1964 Scholz made a film documentary about the Hill Tribes in Northern Thailand (Meau, Lahu, Akha). Between 1964 and 1993 he worked at the Anthropology Department at the South Asia Instítute/Heidelberg.
